A youth sports blog written by Bob Cook. He's contributed to NBCSports.com, or MSNBC.com, if you prefer. He’s delivered sports commentaries for All Things Considered. For three years he wrote the weekly “Kick Out the Sports!” column for Flak Magazine.
Most importantly for this blog, Bob is a father of four who is in the throes of being a sports parent, a youth coach and a youth sports economy stimulator in an inner-ring suburb of Chicago. He reserves the right to change names to protect the innocent and the extremely, extremely guilty.
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Virginia Legislators Tebow Toward Home-Schooled Kids

Virginia is moving toward forcing public schools to let home schoolers on their sports teams. You may know that legislative move as a Tim Tebow bill, because Tebow was a home-schooler who got to play football at his local high school thanks to a law Florida passed in 1996, pre-Tebow-as-athletic-hero — at least 14 other states have passed similar measures.

The Tebow bills come from the mindset that because you pay taxes to schools, your children should be able to play sports there, even though they don’t attend classes. It’s like how I pay taxes to the Air Force, so even though I’m not in the service, I should get to fly a fighter jet.

To get around the fact that the Virginia High School League, which oversees most prep sports in the state, is not a government entity, the bill would prevent any public school from joining a membership organization that bars homeschoolers from participating. The league’s Policy Manual, section 28-1-4 (1), says, “A ‘regular’ student is considered a full-time student who is in regular attendance and is carrying a schedule of subjects which, if successfully completed, will render him/her scholastically eligible for League participation the ensuing semester.’” The educational institution they are attending regularly, under league rules, is Mom’s Kitchen High, or wherever they are, not the public school.

The Tebow bill in Virginia, which has been introduced every year since 2005, looks like it’s got a chance, even though it’s only passed a House committee so far. The Republicans who control the legislative are generally supportive, and Gov. Bob McDonnell says he’ll sign a Tebow bill, though he hasn’t mentioned whether he would, in fact, Tebow after signing it.

The homeschool advocates make it sound like the justest and fairest thing in the world to let homeschoolers play sports at the local public school. Beyond the I-pay-taxes argument, a Tebow bill would allow Virginia homeschoolers to get greater opportunities athletically, and get the benefits of a team environment. “They just want to try out,” the bill’s sponsor, Delegate Robert B. Bell (R-Charlottesville) told the Washington Post, which notes his younger siblings were home-schooled. “They just want a chance to participate with their friends, their neighbors, their community members.”

They represent such pining youths as Patrick Foss, a homeschooler from South Riding who dreams of playing soccer at his local high school. ”Every Friday night I see the lights come on at my local high school and I wonder what it must be like to play in front of a hometown crowd,” the 17-year-old said during testimony to a Virginia House committee, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Excuse me if I don’t rail at the injustice of at all.

First, homeschool families, you pay taxes, but beyond my smart-aleck argument about not getting to fly a fighter jet, you don’t pay . As this editorial in the Franklin News-Post points out, the homeschoolers don’t count toward the formula Virginia has for doling out state money to schools — so the athletic homeschool families would be costing taxpayers money by their presence.

Second, by definition a homeschooler is already in a school — a school with an enrollment of one (presuming no siblings). Private school students, under this bill, don’t get the option of playing for their public school, even though their families pay just as much in taxes. So why leave them out?

Third, Patrick Foss was so hamstrung by his inability to play high school sports, he only ended up playing on club teams, becoming the 16th-ranked boys high school soccer player by ESPN, and suffered the indignity of getting a soccer scholarship to the University of Virginia. Note to homeschool advocates — this doesn’t help your cause. Patrick Foss seems to demonstrate why a family would homeschool — so it can select the best, private courses of education and development, far away from those cesspoolian public schools.

Fourth, I just find it so rich that homeschool advocates are more than happy to run down public schools and explain why they’re just not good enough for their little budding geniuses, yet they’re begging to lean on and cherry-pick the public school for things they can’t provide. Hey, no one forced you to homeschool. If you want to keep your kid away from the educational system, don’t come running back whining about I-pay-my-taxes when you child discover the lure of school stadium lights.

Plenty of parents have figured out how to find alternatives such as club and recreational sports, and forming homeschool leagues with teams made up of homeschooled students. (Virginia has such an organization.) You’re in a rural area, and you’re worried that you have to drive a long way to get your kid in some sport? Then drive. Your taxes paid for the roads, and if you have a driver’s license, there’s no law preventing you from taking advantage of using them. Unless you’re going to protest that you don’t need a driver’s license, but you need a law otherwise allowing you to use the roads for a very specific purpose.

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No, because you are a paid employee. But you already knew the answer, didn’t you?

I am interested to hear how Fairfax County offers classes ala carte. Is that required by the state? Do you have to pay extra? Would your children count toward any attendance figures used to calculate state funding?

It’s so surprising that people jump to presuming that homeschoolers are “cherry picking” when Virginia homeschoolers have had part-time access in many communities for many years, without resentment but with total cooperation between the schools and the families! This is what we are asking for in regards to athletics – letting the community decide if they want to serve the youth of their community in this way, and if they are able to do so. Many opponents to sports access for homeschoolers have not informed themselves about any of this – they don’t know anything about how homeschooling works or how schools and homeschooling families frequently cooperate to create great situations for kids. Unencumbered by the reality, they just say “no cherry picking!” without the information they should have looked into before making such a sweeping proclamation, that does not even take into account what has been working well currently.

Anyway, the VaHomeschoolers site explains it well:

Homeschooled students are already in public school classrooms: Under Virginia law, school boards may allow homeschooled students to enroll in academic classes on a part-time basis, and reimbursement of up to 50% of ADM is provided for these students. Just over half of all school divisions in Virginia allow part-time enrollment (on a space-available basis, giving preference to full-time public school students), and these programs are working well. Under VHSL rules, school boards currently do NOT have the authority to allow students who are enrolled on a part-time basis to participate in interscholastic athletics and other programs.

Here is the link: http://www.vahomeschoolers.org/legislative/2012_01_30_reasons_to_support_sports_access.asp

You can also read more about part-time access in other places on the VaHomeschoolers site or – surprise! – at many school division websites and, uh, in the statutes of Virginia! It’s already law – it’s not cherry picking! It’s working! And the localities get to decide.

Thanks for listening. I apologize if I sound strident in my two most recent comments. It is so hard to realize that people have formed opinions without having looked into how homeschooling operates, and then those opinions get reverberated around the web.

We are your friends, your neighbors, your co-workers. We don’t think many homeschooled kids will have the interest — our numbers are so small, and we only know of a few kids with the talent and work ethic to make it. We’d like the opportunity for the few who do to TRY OUT for a place on the team – or for our own community to decide if that would be a good thing. We know that schools and homeschoolers have cooperated well in other settings, and rather than being banned, we’d like to have a chance to extend that cooperation.

You should be sure to look carefully at the bill – lots of what people think they object to in homeschoolers playing sports is already covered. And also look at what is already working for homeschoolers in Virginia. It’s been so sad to see the anti-homeschooling adults and status quo thinking in the media and blogs pit homeschooled kids against public school kids, presuming that there is inherent criticism in the choice to send kids to school among those who make a choice to homeschool.

See the Reasons to Support the bill at VaHomeschoolers website (same link I gave above0, which not only gives reasons to supports the bill but also explains many misunderstood parts of the proposed sports access.

Giving local control to school boards, so they can decide how best to meet the needs of their communities according to their resources, is incredibly sane. If the coaches who need players can pick up an eligible kid among the homeschool ranks, they can. If other school divs don’t want to be open to that, they can decide not to do so.

The only thing that is not sane is the Virginia High School League’s years-long rules that ban homeschooled kids. By the way – cyber schooled kids who don’t set foot in “their” public schools ARE eligible to play, as are international exchange students. Just, uh, not those homeschoolers, by golly.

I will look forward to seeing your ideas for a bill, Bob. Homeschool advocates – and EVEN the General Assembly asked – VHSL to come up with ideas for quite a few years. Rather than come to the table, they continued to promote divisive “you’re not one of us” thinking. It would have been just as easy to see homeschoolers as part of the general community or part of the athletic community – especially since cyber schoolers and exchange students are. I am not sure why the fear of homeschoolers – I’ve been running with homeschoolers for years and find them to be innovative, community-service oriented, and quite adept at helping kids reach independence in ways that will make them productive citizens. But the defensiveness among those who make a different choice – the choice NOT to homeschool – is palpable. We’re really not a threatening group – we’re just trying to do good stuff for our kids and the community, just like you are.

“I just find it so rich that homeschool advocates are more than happy to run down public schools and explain why they’re just not good enough for their little budding geniuses, yet they’re begging to lean on and cherry-pick the public school for things they can’t provide. Hey, no one forced you to homeschool. If you want to keep your kid away from the educational system, don’t come running back whining about I-pay-my-taxes when you child discover the lure of school stadium lights.” -Bob Cook

I’m having difficulty taking any of your argument seriously, when your “contribution” to the dialogue on this issue begins and ends with such a whopping assumption about how those who don’t attend their community public schools full-time feel about public schools. Many parents who make the choice to pursue alternatives to full time enrollment at a public school, are big supporters of the notion that the public funding of education is a good and necessary thing. I know I am.

Also, I find the analogy you use to dismiss the argument that we all contribute to the funding of schools, and therefore we all should have access to school offerings, to be flawed. You say: “It’s like how I pay taxes to the Air Force, so even though I’m not in the service, I should get to fly a fighter jet.” Um, the requirement that we pay taxes that go in part to support the Air Force, never came with an understanding that any Joe or Jane could fly one. That’s not true where education funding is concerned. The deal in the USA is that if you have kids, they have the right to access education resources through the schools.

Times have changed. Nowadays, all kinds of folks, for all kinds of legitimate reasons, design education experiences for their kids that depend not at all, or partly, or in full on public school offerings. All that a school offers should be available to any child, regardless of whether that child attends full-time, part-time, or doesn’t use the school for academics at all. It’s okay! We’re all part of the same local learning community.

If people don’t want to do EVERYTHING through the public schools, there’s no reason they should be banned from participating in certain things. When we go use public parks, its not an all or nothing deal. No one says, “Hey, to get to use this park at all, you must make use of the slide, the swings, the sandbox and the merry go round, or nothing at all.”

It’s also pretty sad to see you trotting out the same arguments almost verbatim that I read in a post you authored at least two years ago.

I have to say one thing I agree totally on this statement: the homeschoolers don’t count toward the formula Virginia has for doling out state money to schools — so the athletic homeschool families would be costing taxpayers money by their presence.

I am not against homeschooling and have friends that do it. However, they might pay state taxes but I don’t recall an area on my husband’s pay stub that says – school taxes – it’s a general state tax. You pay taxes and the government decides how it is budgeted out based on the needs of the state. I can’t say I always agree with the budget but it is what it is. Yes if they let all homeschool kids and private schools kids participate in a public school sport activity then taxes will have to increase on everyone including the Homeschool parents in order to count them as a “student”. Not only that what about the kids who go to school 8 hours a day and having to meet higher standards and studies within the requirements of that school. Now they have to compete against homeschool kids to get a spot on the team. No way.

If I choose to take online college classes through a community college doesn’t mean I can go out for at team at ODU. You have to be attending that school to participate in thier athletic teams – right? Plus you have to maintain certain school requirements to stay on the team as well as many public schools require.

If you are flunking a class – no sports – how is that so for homeschoolers. The only accountabilty is the parent and if the parent is a sports driven person then there are too many loop holes for deceit.

If a parent wants to have thier child to participate in a sport for a public school then they need to enroll them – you can’t have your cake and eat it too. I agree with this person – you can’t homeschool and hate or don’t support public school only to want to use public school to give your child an athletic opportunity. Not fair to all the parents who submit to the school system for thier child.

Sorry I don’t agree to this bill at all and will be very upset if they pass it. I have 6 children 1 graduated from public school and the others still attending public school. One of which is an athlete whom we have to pay lots of money for outside training to prepare her for High School try outs. My kids work hard and have more school work than thier homeschool friends. It isn’t fair to my kids to work so hard in a school that we have a financial, educational and emotional stockhold in only to have someone who doesn’t support public schools to “use” it for a personal gain.

I have been told that schools get money based on the enrolled students and attendance of kids in school. So why should we as tax payers have to pay more taxes just so that they can play sports and not attend school.

Here is another thought! If homeschoolers want public school rights then shouldn’t all homeschool parents be a licensed teacher and held accountable to the school board? I think that is a fair deal. Each homeschool parent must be a licensed teacher recognized as a licensed teacher by the school board within thier zone to work in accountability with the school that thier kid would play for – so that there is an educational responsibility and accountability with the principal and school system.